New cancer research centre for Sydney

A $100 million cancer research centre to be built at the University of NSW is already being credited with luring leading scientists home to undertake crucial research.

The centre, an Australian first to establish facilities for research and clinical drugs trials into both adult and children's cancers, was announced by University of NSW Vice-Chancellor Fred Hilmer.

The Lowy Cancer Research Centre, which will house up to 400 cancer researchers, will be located adjacent to UNSW's Faculty of Medicine at its Randwick campus, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

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Westfield founder Frank Lowy and his family have donated $10 million toward the facility - the largest single philanthropic donation ever received by the university.

Top grants have come from the NSW government, $18.3 million, and from the federal government - $13.3 million.

Professor Philip Hogg, director of the UNSW Cancer Research Centre, will head adult cancer research at the Lowy centre and will be able to bring back the British trial of a new cancer drug his team developed.

Development of a drug known as glutathionarsenoxide (or GSAO) was completed in 2003 but Prof Hogg was unable to get funding for early trials.

The drug aims to stop cancer tumours from developing blood vessels to continue their growth after initial cell development.

Clinical trials are about to begin at the Cancer Research UK, a non-profit cancer foundation.

Trials of a second generation of the drug would also have had to be shipped overseas but the creation of the Lowy Centre has attracted the people and the $2 million to trial the drug at the one location in Sydney.

"What the facility does is it enables us to take our research efforts to the next level," Prof Hogg said.

He said both an Australian cancer researcher now at Cambridge University and one at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, will return to work at the Lowy Centre.

"It provides a beacon if you like for other great cancer researchers and gives them a reason to come here and work in Sydney."

Another prominent clinician, oncologist Robyn Ward, recently joined the UNSW team as a professor of medicine, a move which helped Prof Hogg win further funding for the second drug trial.

He said drug companies back 99 per cent of advanced drug trials but only after initial trials show promise for a new drug.

"The combination of the two of us was good enough to get funding outside of the drug-company-sphere to do the trial," Prof Hogg said.

"The trial on this second drug is a good example of how that sort of initiative will allow things to happen that probably wouldn't have happened otherwise."

The Lowy Centre also will house the Children's Cancer Institute of Australia, which was looking to expand into a now home.

It will be the first time adult and children's cancer research will be located at the same facility, Prof Hogg said.

Since cancer in children and cancer in adults develop for inherently different reasons, there has never previously been one centre to house research for both.

But Prof Hogg said that by combining them, and with clinical trials, the Lowy Centre would continue to attract top researchers and trial funding.